Sydney's lost Garden Palace

Sydney's magnificent Garden Palace, which stood on what is now the Botanical Gardens, was erected in just eight months to hold the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. Under its glorious 64m-high dome were restaurants, tea rooms, an oyster bar and other grand sights. But one tragic 1882 morning, the Palace was totally destroyed by fire in less than an hour. Per the Sydney Morning Herald, "flames [rushed] up in long tongues to the dome … the stained glass of the skylight dropped in a molten rain", and then "with a crash like thunder the mighty dome fell in". The blaze's origins are a mystery, but here's the most intriguing theory: Sydney's leading families burned the Palace down to destroy census records stored inside, which "apparently exposed embarrassing secrets about [their] convict and squatter origins". (State Records NSW/Flickr)